I Have to Build A New PC

Is everything fried in it? Hard drive? What about the monitor?

www.newegg.com pretty good place for ordering parts

www.hardocp.com has good hardware reviews

I'd reccomend an nForce based motherboard for an AMD processor. A gig of RAM, and the best ATI video card you can afford, with 256 of VRAM (what you'll need for the highest texture setting in Doom 3 and Half Life 2).

Very possible... especially since you live in the Atlanta area. There are TONS of PC shops in the area that sell and service equipment at near cost. Try picking up a copy of "Computer Currents", which lists the latest prices for many of the shops. I am in the Northern 'burbs, so I tend to stick with Ginstar, Prime Computer, and ComputerZone. But there are even more in the Norcross area. I hear Monarch Computers is pretty good.

Also, check out the Fry's Electronics that opened not too long ago. It's just next to Gwinnett Place Mall.

I am currently in the process of building a new PC myself. Gonna put a P4 HT 3.4 GHZ together with 1.5 GB RAM, 256MB GPU, etc etc for under $1200. Can't beat it.

www.tigerdirect.com

www.mwave.com

are good spots for ordering parts also.

Go with Newegg. You won't regret it.

I recommend the popular ASUS A7N8X motherboard.

Newegg is really kicking ass with their shipping and services lately, more than usual.

Also, be sure to check out their daily deals and weekend deals. They have some pretty good stuff going on there.

here's something I'm looking at doing for my brother in-law:

Thermaltake Shark Black ATX case - $156

Seagate 120 Gig Hard Drive SATA 2 with NCQ - $100

Corsair XMS 1 Gig Ram (PC 3200) - $189

Asus A8N SLI Deluxe mobo - $239

Antec Neo Power 480 watt power supply - $126

Gigabyte Geforce 6600 GT PCI-Express video card - $188

AMD Athlon 64 3500 cpu - $289

At most, if I were you...like the others said. Strip as much as possible from your existing box to hit your $1000 dollar price range. The parts I've chosen combined come under $1300. It'll be an extra hundred just for windows xp...hopefully you have a copy of that to use as well.

This particular package is your basic no frills system, designed for future proofing/expandability. Especially if you eventually got yourself another gigabyte video card and utilized SLI.

I opted for no soundcard or network card - as they're built into the mobo. In your case...you could probably use your existing hard drive, soundcard, network card, and/or modem...and go from there.

edited to add: in my haste I forgot a freaking dvd/cd-rom/burner. Go with Sony's Dual Layer burner - $60

...I am such a nerd.

I'm in the process of trying to put together a PC building business. From what I've seen looking for components so far I have to agree with everyone who said try Newegg.com

Good prices & very quick delivery. I think they'll be hard to beat.

Heh. There's a PC building service in my town who just orders all their stuff from Newegg, then jacks up the price. It's pretty insulting when you walk in the door and see all those Newegg boxes lying around.

Understandable. For me Newegg is a good place for building PC's for family & friends, I'll be looking to go wholesale for business. I'm actually in the middle of (slowly) building us a new PC 'cos our current one is getting old & tired. Unfortunately, lots of unforeseen expenses have kicked us back a bit. And now our main TV has decided to die. With 3 kids you can imagine the fun we're gonna have there !!!

Kyle Reese, billylove and L7 Productions:

For suggesting Newegg and turning me on to it, I will give you each 33% of my first new born.

This is pretty much a scam since the cheapest DVD-DL disk goes for $9.99.

And paying $60 instead of just updating the firmware on a cheaper model deserves a bitchslap.



http://www.americal.com/ct/double%20...d%20media.html

What, no love for tigerdirect? Can I at least have the big left toe or chunk of shoulder from your new born?

you do know that the sony burner can burn single layer media at 16x/8x (+r/-r); you could spend the same amount of money on a single layer plextor that can only burn discs at 12x/8x (+r/-r)

of course the god damned dual layer discs are still expensive as shit. that particular burner was picked for future capabilities (when the dl media comes down in price) while right now being a bad ass performer compared to other players out there.

something I like to call future proofing....eh?

I will give you his brisket.

I'll bring the cigars!

To keep this thread going on a slightly altered tip....

I need to buy a new PC, are there any suggestions?

What I need

A Hardrive between 80-200 GB
A DVD-R drive
A really good video editing program
Price under $1000


I'm trying to get all opinions and advice together before I make my purchase at the end of the month.

Actually, the Sony DVD -r/+r DL DVD you were refering to only records @ 2.5x on DL mode.

The Pioneer DVR-A09XLB records at 16x on both - / +, and records at 6x on DL mode. It's just about $20 more and is a bit ahead of the curve.

eh?

1) following your earlier advice....if someone were capable of flashing the firmware on the sony drive. doing 4x recording for dual layer media is an option, instead of the listed 2.4x, while also bumping up -r to 12x...still some respectable numbers for $60 bucks for anyone on a budget who wants to eat dinner and stuff.

2) that's a nice rabbit you pulled out of your hat with the pioneer model. all shiny, fast, and hot off the presses new. so new I never heard of it hitting the market until now; really, thank you for the heads up.

but you think dl recording/media pricing is a crock anyway....so why take an interest in players/recorders other than to partake in a minor mb pissing match?

do you stand there in the compusa aisle staring at the blank discs that taunt your inner soul...screaming inside that, "these prices are an OUTRAGE I will not stand for this nonsense, but oh, look, a burner for just under 90 bucks....can't resist...hmmm, I think I'll go home and burn me some overpriced discs". Sitting there at the keyboard, zinging some shlub on the internet hoping ask jeeves approves, while your pit bull ralfie gnaws the dried peanut butter from your wrinkly balls. this is the life. ouch, ralfie, stop.

yeah that's it. ennit?

Actually, shifting the DL writing speeds is more than a firmware upgrade.

It's actually been around since September.

It's just a better value for $20 more, and ahead of most DVDrs. That's all

No. I own a Mac.

jesus, that pretty much sucks ass. There are a couple of threads in the home theater wing of these boards...they should point you in some direction for doing stuff with your pvr.

really? I'm kind of wondering why none of the major hardware sites and mags never made a fuss about such a high-end piece of technology last fall. You know, raving reviews about pushing the limits further and further; garnering a spot in some lofty dream machine articles; or being declared gear of the year. the absence of the P109 from any sites like hardocp, toms, or maximum pc in recent months must be a glaring mistake in your eyes, no? I couldn't find any reviews with the usual suspects of search engines. There is no mention of the drive in any of the recent tech mags sitting by my desk. the most that I could pull up with this drive is the australian arm of Pioneer announcing that the P109 is expected to roll out for sale in February. . That and if you hopped over to newegg to see some user reviews - there are only two...written two weeks ago...which is common for most pc products that have just been released for public sale.

So yeah, color me surprised that I've never heard of Pioneer's drive until this little pissing match took place. My guess - you had the P108 in mind, which has been around for awhile, is a decent performer and such...or something.

Thermaltake Silent PurePower, 420W ATX power supply $36 today only.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...153-006&depa=0

Sounds like a nice setup. If I were you I'd consider bumping the memory up to 1gb when you can. Just done that to this old POS, 2ghz Celeron based & it's helped. I'm in the process of slowly putting a new PC together for me & the wife, need something way faster for video editing!! Once that's built our little girl will get this one....I can't wait, she is hooked on Sims 2 & is hard to get off the damn thing !

Anyway, glad to hear your pleased with your new rig. Enjoy!

Wasn't TigerDirect involved in some loose credit card security problems or something akin to that?

Thanks for this. great find! My older PC had a 250 watt power source and I was needing to upgrade so I can handle a new high-end graphics card.

This solved all! though I've never installed a new power source myself before. is it pretty easy?

Which reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask for ages:

Can anyone remember the name of that barmy early-80's TV show which featured a young computer geek and his home-built computer that could just do ... everything?

I've got money riding on this.

Sounds like an episode of "Tales from the Darkside" Word Processor of the Gods which was originally a Stephen King short story.

As far as power supplies go check the connectors they are rounded on one side flat on the other so unless you really force them they will only plug in one way

Nope, it was definitely a TV show that ran for at least one series. A talking computer and a proto-David Lightman (or is it the other way around?) running the keyboard, hacking into just about every computer on the planet.